Governance Events

Glenn Slocum, former Mission Director in Burundi and former Director of East African Affairs, United States Agency for International Development (retired); Ozong Agborsangaya, Director, Sub-Saharan Africa Programmes, Search for Common Ground and Howard Wolpe, Director, Africa Program Woodrow Wilson Center

Funding is a decisive issue for any development project, but international water projects face additional hurdles by working multilaterally in an arena dominated by bilateral funding. A three-day International Waters Funding Dialogue conference is hosted by National University of Costa Rica.

Congressman Nereus Acosta, of the Philippines' House of Representatives, speaks about his government's response to problems linking population and the environment. Joan Regina L. Castro and Leona Ann D'Agnes of the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCoRM) Initiative give an overview of their program.

Attempts to develop a positive, practical policy framework for environmental cooperation and sustainable peace are promising, but have not been widely analyzed or practiced. The Water Conflict and Cooperation Working Group, part of ECSP's Navigating Peace initiative, discusses these issues.

Environmental damage sustained during conflict poses serious health threats to the population and prevents nations from recovering. Pekka Haavisto speaks about the history and role of post-conflict environmental assessments.

Elizabeth Economy offers a history of environmental degradation in China, outlines the wide-reaching impact such problems have on nearly every part of Chinese society, and profiles the challenges facing China in resolving pollution and natural resource problems today.

On the occasion of his first visit to Washington, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin delivered a speech focusing on bilateral issues and the issue of North American security, where he outlined the steps his government has taken to ensure that the Canada-U.S. border is more secure and open to trade.